An 18-year-old was dismissed from the U.S. Ski Team's development squad after he was accused of getting drunk and then urinating on a fellow passenger aboard a JetBlue flight.
Robert "Sandy" Vietze, of Warren, Vt., was detained by police at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday morning after arriving on a red-eye flight from Portland, Ore.
He faces a federal misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn.
"Based on the information we have, Sandy Vietze is in violation of the USSA code of conduct and team agreement, and has been dismissed from the team," U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association Executive Vice President of Athletics Luke Bodensteiner said in an email sent to The Associated Press on Friday.
The New Post reported that the splashed flier was a sleeping 11-year-old girl. The youngster was traveling with her sister and father on the flight, and had been left alone for a few minutes while the others used the lavatories. Vietze stumbled from his seat five rows behind her and emptied his bladder, a witness told the newspaper.
"I was drunk, and I did not realize I was p***ing on her leg," Vietze said, according to law-enforcement sources. He later claimed to have consumed eight alcoholic beverages, the Post reports.
Vietze was nominated to the development team this spring after excelling as an alipine skier at the Green Mountain Valley School, a top ski academy and high school in Waitsfield, Vt., where tuition runs as much as $42,384 per year. He had been scheduled to compete on the national ski team's developmental squad for the 2011-2012 season.
A spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jerseysaid the agency's police department couldn't confirm the passenger's age or gender.
The Port Authority initially told the AP and other news outlets Thursday that federal prosecutors had decided to drop the indecent exposure charge, but a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office, Robert Nardoza, said Friday that the case is still pending.
Newscore and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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